Spoilers for the first two episodes of The New Look are ahead! If you haven’t watched the historical drama on the 2024 TV schedule, you can stream it now with an Apple TV+ subscription.
One of the reasons why The New Look might be one of Apple TV+’s best shows in recent months is because of its remarkable cast. Following the iconic designers Christian Dior and Coco Chanel, who are played by Ben Mendelsohn and Juliette Binoche, the show’s roster of actors matches the legendary status of the fashion icons they’re playing. So, when I got the chance to chat with John Malkovich about playing Lucien Lelong, I had to ask about his collaboration with Mendelsohn, and he revealed which scene helped define their on-screen relationship.
For context, in The New Look, we see the rise of Christian Dior, who worked for Lucien Lelong during World War II before opening his own fashion house after the war. In the first few episodes of the series, we see the impact the Nazi occupation of France had on these designers and their families, and Christian’s sister Catherine (Maisie Williams), who was part of the resistance, is taken to a prison camp. When she’s taken away, Mendelsohn and Malkovich’s characters race to the train station to try and get her, but she’s already gone.
For the Lelong actor, this was a defining moment for him and Mendelsohn as he told CinemaBlend:
One of the most important [scenes] was at the train station when they are trying to rush and get Dior's sister out of the hands of the Nazis on just the kind of familial agony of Dior, about his sister, his younger sister, his fate was something Ben [Mendelsohn] was very in touch with and can communicate very powerfully and very instantaneously.
It’s one of the most powerful and gut-wrenching moments in the first episodes of the show as Christian tries to save his sister and falls short. Lelong, his employer and friend, is there to support him through this tough moment, and what happened here radiates through the rest of the series. So, it makes sense that this was the moment Malkovich pointed out to me.
Like when Ben Mendelsohn gushed about Maisie Williams and this show, Malkovich had similar compliments for the Bloodline star and this moment as he told me:
And Ben, as I say, he's a livewire. And he's really great too – I've always loved watching Ben, and I love watching him on this, and I love working with him. He's terrific. And [Dior and Lelong] had, like many friendships, it's boss and employee, it's friend to friend, it's talent to maybe not so talented. It's a very complex relationship. Ben is someone very capable of nuance, and of projecting nuance and projecting pain and passion and humor. So their relationship, I think is a very interesting one.
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If you’ve watched Bloodline, the Marvel movies in order and the beloved Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, then you are very aware of Ben Mendelsohn’s range and power as an actor, and The New Look makes that fact even clearer. Added to it, his performance as Christian is nuanced, as Malkovich said, and it’s scenes like the one they shared at the train station that show this.
Personally, I loved seeing Mendelsohn and Malkovich’s on-screen dynamic in The New Look, and learning about the respect they had for each other behind the scenes makes it even better. To see how Lelong and Dior’s friendship evolves from the moment the actor pointed out to me, you can stream new episodes of The New Look every Wednesday on Apple TV+.
